Use the document to learn about the immersive video effects in After Effects.

After Effects offers native immersive video effects to edit your VR 360 and VR 180 videos. You can use a host of dynamic transitions, effects, and titles to edit and enhance the immersive video experience. You can experiment with the different immersive video effects in After Effects for a seamless post-production workflow.

GPU requirements for immersive video effects

Immersive Video effects render using the GPU of your computer. Make sure to set your video rendering preference to GPU. To set, select File > Project Settings > Video Rendering and Effects > Use > Mercury GPU Acceleration (OpenCL). If your settings are set to Mercury Software Only, the effects do not render and display a warning banner - This effect requires GPU acceleration.

Apply seamless immersive video effects to your footage

You can use the spherically aware immersive video effects that compensate for distortion in equirectangular content.

To apply these effects, select Effects > Immersive Video, or search for VR in the Effects & Presets panel.

Immersive video effects under Effects tab

Immersive video effects in Effects and Presets panel

Post Effects in After Effects provide a seamless editing experience. You can apply the effects directly to the stitched 360 footage, with no distortion along the seams. You can add the following effects to your videos to enhance immersive experience:

Apply VR Color Gradients effect

Before

After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR Color Gradient settings

Parameter

Description

Frame Layout

Sets the frame layout as Monoscopic or Stereoscopic Over/Under.

Points Number

Adjusts the number of color points that are applied to a footage.

Gradient Power

Adjusts the overall gradient power for all the color points.

Gradient Blend

Adjusts the overall blending for all the color points. The higher the number, the more the colors begin to blend together. The blending starts at the edges and moves inwards. For example, feathering around the edges.

Points

Adjusts the Color and Point of Interest for each of your color points. Each of the Points of Interests can be moved independently and can be key-framed.

Opacity

Adjusts the opacity of the overall color gradients on your footage. At 100%, the effect is opaque. At 0%, the effect is transparent.

Blending Mode

You can select from the various color blending modes for the effect on top of your original footage. The default is Normal.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Fractal Noise effect

Before

After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR Fractal Noise setting

Parameter

Description

Frame Layout

Sets the frame layout as Monoscopic or Stereoscopic Over/Under.

Fractal Type

The parameter allows you to choose between four different fractal types: Basic, Turbulent Sharp, Max, and Strings.

Contrast

Adjusts the image contrast for the fractal noise.

Brightness

Adjusts the brightness level for the fractal noise

Invert

Inverts the color channels of the fractal noise.

Complexity

Adjusts the complexity of the fractal noise. Higher the value, more detailed fractal noise, and lower the value, less detailed fractal noise.

Evolution

The parameter allows you to use the cycling feature to animate fractal noise. Speed of cycling changes the animation.

Transform

Scale: Adjusts the overall size of the fractals on your footage. Higher the value, larger the visible fractals.

Tilt (X axis): Repositions the fractal noise on the X-axis of your footage.
Pan (Y axis): Repositions the fractal noise on the Y-axis of your footage.

Roll (Z axis): Repositions the fractal noise on the Z-axis of your footage.

Sub settings

Sub Influence: Fractal noise effect is made up of multiple fractal noise layers. Adjusts the influence the sublayer of fractal noise on the appearance.

Sub Scaling: Adjusts the influence of scaling that the sublayer of fractal noise has on the appearance.

Sub Tilt (X axis): Adjusts the position of the subscaled fractal noise layer on the X-axis of your footage.

Sub Pan (Y axis): Adjusts the position of the subscaled fractal noise layer on the Y-axis of your footage.

Sub Roll (Z axis): Adjusts the position of the sub scaled fractal noise layer on the Z-axis of your footage.

Random Speed

The parameter allows you to set a random speed of the fractal noise particles on your footage.

Opacity

Adjusts the opacity of the effect on your footage. At 100%, the effect is opaque. At 0%, the effect is transparent.

Blend Mode

The parameter allows you to choose from multiple blending modes.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Digital Glitch effect

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After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR Digital Glitch settings

Parameter

Description

Frame Layout

Sets the frame layout as Monoscopic or Stereoscopic Over/Under.

Point of Interest

Adjusts the Point of Interest, which is the central location of the effect. You can keyframe the position for movement.

POI Scale (Point of Interest scale)

Adjusts the scaling for the effect from the point of interest. If you set the value as 100, the effect is applied to the entire footage. Scale down the value to apply the effect to only a part of the footage.

POI Aspect Ratio (Point of Interest aspect ratio)

Adjusts the aspect ratio of the Point of Interest Scale. If you set the effect to the minimum value of -100, the aspect ration becomes wide and short. The maximum value of 100 makes the ratio narrow.

Master Amplitude

Adjusts the overall threshold value of all the effect settings together. At 100, all the effect settings remain as set by you. At a value of 0, all the effect settings scale back to 0 from your settings.

Geometry Distortion X: Adjusts the distortion on your footage in relation to the X-axis of your footage. Higher the value, more distortion on the axis. For best results, adjust the setting along with the Distortion Rate.

Geometry Distortion Y: Adjusts the distortion on your footage in relation to the Y-axis. Higher the value, more distortion on the axis.

Geometry Distortion Z: Adjusts the distortion on your footage in relation to the Z-axis. Higher the value, more distortion on the axis.

Distortion Complexity: Subdivides the areas of distortion on your footage. Higher the value, finer the distortion. Smaller the value, blocky the distortion.

Distortion Rate: Adjusts the distortion amount on your footage. Set the value as 100 to cover the entire video in distortion. Set the value as 0 for no distortion.

Noise Evolution: Cycles the setting to animate the noise created by the Noise Strength setting.

Quantity settings: Adjusts the cycle speed of noise. Faster the cycles, faster is the distortion animation.

Color Noise: Enables colorized noise.

Random Speed: Random application of the Digital Glitch effect.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Chromatic Aberration effect

Before

After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR Chromatic Aberration settings

Parameter

Description

Frame Layout

Adjusts the frame layout - Monoscopic or Stereoscopic Over/Under.

Point of Interest

Adjusts the position of the point of interest of the footage. You can keyframe the point of interest position for movement.

Aberration (Red)

Adjusts the scale of the Red channel of your footage.

Aberration(Green)

Adjusts the scale of the Green channel of your footage.

Aberration (Blue)

Adjusts the scale of the Blue channel of your footage.

Falloff Distance

Adjusts the falloff distance of the effect from the point of interest. The higher the value, more clear aberrations.

Falloff Invert

Restricts occurrence of chromatic aberrations around the point of interest.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Blur effect

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After

VR Blur settings

VR Blur accurately blurs content while adjusting for the distortion in Equirectangular content.

Blurriness: You can adjust the convolution kernel radius.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side: The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View: The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR De-Noise effect

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After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR De-Noise settings

Parameters

Description

Noise Type

Choose a noise type - Random Valued or Slat-and-Pepper speckles.

Noise Level

Adjusts the input noise level.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Glow effect

Before

After

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage:

VR Glow settings

Parameter

Description

Luma Threshold

Defines the areas in the image that glows. Areas where luma (brightness) is higher than threshold, between 0.0 (black) and 1.0 (white).

Glow Radius

Defines the radius of glowing halo.

Glow Brightness

Multiplies the glow brightness intensity.

Glow Saturation

Multiplies the glow saturation (color) intensity.

Use Tint Color

Blends tint color to the resultant glow color.

Tint Color

Chooses tint color.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Sharpen effect

The VR Sharpen effect adjusts the amount of sharpness in your footage.

Parameter

Description

Sharpen Amount

You can adjust the relative sharpen amount from 0 to 100.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side

The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View

The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Converter effect

You can use VR Converter to convert your footage from 2D source, equirectangular, cubic, or spherical layouts to other VR layouts. You can also change the orientation of your footage and add logos, supers, or image patches.

The converter is divided into two functional categories:

Input and Output formats

Re-orient Camera View

VR Converter settings

VR Converter formats

VR Converter can take inputs and provide outputs in the following formats:

VR Converter Input formats:

Fisheye (FullDome)

Cube-map Facebook 3:2

Cube-map Pano2VR 3:2

Cube-map GearVR 6:1

Equirectangular 16:9

2D Source

Cube-map 4:3

Sphere-map

Equirectangular 2:1

VR Converter Output formats:

Output formats

Example

Cube-map Pano2VR 3:2

Cube-map GearVR 6:1

Fisheye (FullDome)

Equirectangular 16:9

Cube-map Facebook 3:2

Equirectangular 2:1

Re-orient Camera View

You can change the camera orientation of your footage without restiching your camera views with the orientation tools in VR Converter:

Tilt (X-Axis)

Pan (Y Axis)

Roll (Z Axis)

Adjust the value of the settings to achieve different results. You can keyframe the controls and achieve results such as camera tilts, pans, and rolls.

Apply VR Plane to Sphere effect

You can add text, logos, and graphics, and other 2D elements to your Monoscopic or Stereoscopic footage with the VR Plane to Sphere effect.

To work with the effect, use the following steps:

Import or create 2D element in your composition.

Select Effects > Immersive Video, and drag the effect to the timeline.

Stereo Disparity (Degrees): Sets the distance between the left and right view to increase or decrease the amount of the 3D pop out effect. You can keyframe the parameter to allow for a change in stereo effect.

Feather: Feathers the edges of the footage.

Rotate Source: Adjusts the X, Y, or Z rotation of the 2D element relative to the anchor point. You can keyframe the parameter.

Rotate Projection: Adjusts the X, Y, or Z rotation of the position of your element in the 360-degrees spherical environment.

Stereoscopic Side-by-Side: The Frame Layout parameter can be set to Stereoscopic Side-by-Side, in addition to the existing Monoscopic and Stereoscopic Over/Under options.

Horizontal and Vertical Field of View: The horizontal and vertical field of view can be independently set. By default, the values are 360x180. For VR 180 content, set both values to 180.

Apply VR Rotate Sphere effect

You can use the following parameters to play around with the effect on your footage: